Cyber Attack

by Tim Washburn

  I will do it, Raahim types, now back from his short nap. Cover for me.

  Raahim stands and heads for the door to the corridor just as Nazeri hangs up the phone and shouts, “Where are you going, Raahim?”

  Raahim stops and turns, saying, “I’m still not feeling well. I think some fresh air will help.”

  Nazeri points at the window. “Open that if you want fresh air.”

  “I would prefer to walk around outside for a moment,” Raahim says.

  “And I would prefer you stay here,” Nazeri says.

  “Are we not allowed outside anymore?” Raahim asks.

  “What is it with you, Raahim?” Nazeri asks. “You just returned from a nap and now you want to go for a walk? We are behind schedule. You will sit down at your computer and resume your work.”

  Raahim crosses his arms in defiance. “Or what?”

  Nazeri reaches behind his back and pulls out a pistol, and all five of the hackers gasp. He holds the pistol up high for all to see and says, “Playtime is over. Everyone back to work.”

  Raahim returns to his seat as the others, eyes wide, continue working. Hassan is not that surprised that Nazeri has a weapon and it only strengthens his resolve to discover more about the man and whom he is working for. He opens a web browser and searches for phone providers in the area. He finds three companies and he clicks open their websites. Infiltrating the companies is not a problem, but without the specific phone number he’s shooting in the dark.

  Stuck, Hassan closes the browser and pulls up the team’s list of targets. As he scans the list, his sour stomach roils. It’s a smorgasbord of death and destruction that includes additional power grids, chemical plants, dams, nuclear power plants, and oil refineries. And that’s just on the first page. From there it’s on to the water treatment plants, sewage facilities, and other vulnerable infrastructure elements.

  Hassan leans back in his chair, thinking. After several moments, he opens a new chat window and, again, takes Sheezal off the list of participants. He types: Jermar, can you hack Nazeri’s computer?

  Jermar responds: Remotely?

  Hassan nods as he types: Yes. Can you do it? They all have excellent computer skills, but Jermar’s hacking ability is a thing of beauty.

  Sheezal, working on power grids, proudly announces that another power outage is on the way.

  “Where?” Hassan asks.

  “The Midwest,” Sheezal says, smiling.

  Hassan frowns as he glances down at his screen to see Jermar’s answer pop up in the chat window: If he is signed on to the network, maybe. I will try.

  Hassan types out a response: Hurry!

  CHAPTER 64

  Little Rock, Arkansas

  While Paige and Hank wing their way to the airport, the employees of Heartland Energy in Little Rock, Arkansas, are hard at work. Nestled in the pine trees west of Little Rock is an unassuming low-slung building that is set back from the main road and hidden behind a mass of large-scale commercial stores. The only thing that differentiates this building from others in the area is the number of exterior cameras and the razor wire that encircles the property. It’s not a difficult place to find, if you know what you’re looking for—but good luck getting inside. In addition to the razor wire, there are a multitude of other external security features to prevent and repel possible threats from terrorists looking to do the country harm.

  But the security doesn’t end there. Inside, the company’s computer networks have all the necessary firewalls, the redundant systems, and the people who know how to operate such networks. In fact, the facility operates much like other businesses with one exception—18 million people depend on the second-by-second decisions made by the employees working inside the average-looking building.

  Heartland Energy plays a role in managing the largest machine ever built by humans—the power grid. Heartland oversees the flow of electricity to homes and businesses in all or part of fourteen states, serving 18 million customers. It’s a highly automated process that’s managed from the state-of-the-art control room that looks more like a NASA rocket launch facility, with a wall of large video screens displaying weather, news, and the current status of the grid. With 790 member power plants, 65,000 miles of transmission lines that stretch from West Texas to the Dakotas, it’s a massive job just to keep it all up and running the way it was designed to do every day, 365 days a year. Heartland harnesses the power from multiple utilities and independent power producers and feeds that power out to the grid. It’s a hodgepodge of different entities, both public and private, with each usually having to conform to a different set of rules depending on jurisdiction, making the task that much more complicated. To help, a network of computers performs a majority of the control center’s tasks, but humans are involved, too. One of those humans is night shift supervisor Jackie Gentry.

  At twenty-eight, Jackie’s attention to detail and her dogged determination led to a promotion to supervisor, surpassing many long-term employees who still harbor resentment. Jackie could care less what the old-timers think—her ultimate goal is to someday run the company. She’s not rude or mean—in fact, she goes out of her way to include everyone whenever decisions are made—but some people aren’t happy no matter what you do. And, for Jackie, that’s fine—just do your damn job.

  Tall at five-ten, Jackie grew up in northern Minnesota, where the harsh winters sometimes had an effect on the power grid and she knows that a power outage can have disastrous consequences, even loss of life. With long, wheat-colored hair, blue eyes, and a slender build, Jackie has many of the traits of her Nordic ancestors. Tonight, her hair is gathered into a high ponytail as she takes a seat at her workstation. Inside the control room, as many as twenty people are working to monitor voltages, line outputs and inputs, power plant status, electricity demand, and, of course, a second-by-second look at wholesale energy prices. After all, Heartland Energy is a business and the number one goal is profits, with performance and customer service tied at a distant second. Millions of dollars are made every day by buying and selling electricity either through other companies or by purchasing futures and options on the open market. Jackie understands all of this, but her primary objective is to keep the lights on, regardless of the circumstances.

  Using her computer, Jackie dims the room’s lights a bit more and gets on with her daily tasks. Summer is peak demand for electricity, and August often ends up being the winner most years as temps across the region soar past 100 degrees most days. Even the nights are hot, rarely dipping below 80 in most places, and all those energy-gobbling air conditioners cutting on and off put a tremendous strain on the power grid. This time of the year, Jackie likes to keep a close eye on the power plants. They had received the urgent messages about the other power outages, but there’s little they can do but focus on keeping the lights on for their customers. During most months of the year the power plants operate below peak capacity—not so during the summer months. Most every plant is churning and burning and, coupled with light winds that often idle the big wind farms during the hottest months, it’s a tightly choreographed dance to keep the grid running.

  The folks at Heartland Energy take their jobs seriously. To ensure the power continues unabated they built an exact replica of this facility on the other side of the Arkansas River. There, the crew and computer systems mimic everything Jackie and her staff do and are capable of taking over power grid operations at a moment’s notice.

  Jackie opens the program that monitors the plants and pages through the real-time results that show capacity, power generated, and current status. All looks normal until she lands on a natural gas–fired plant in the Nebraska Public Power District. She glances up from her screen and scans the room, looking for one of the engineers. She spots Isaac Armstrong and calls him over. “Have you seen the turbine speeds at the Early Power Plant in Fremont?”

  Isaac pulls up a chair and sits. “They’re fluctuating a little, but it hasn’t triggered an alarm.”

  “Yet,
” Jackie says. “They’re really ramping up. I bet we’ll get an alarm—” Her last words are drowned out by an audible alarm as one of the video screens flashes red.

  “There you go, Isaac. Find out what the problem is, please.”

  Isaac gives her a mock salute and returns to his workstation. Now Jackie has to find a way to reroute power while maintaining consistent voltages and frequencies. She scans through the list of power producers, trying to find one or two who aren’t operating at capacity. “Damn it,” she mutters. It doesn’t help that the few nuclear facilities she has access to were ordered off-line earlier in the day after the disaster at Calvert Cliffs.

  Another alarm sounds and more screens flash red. Turbine speeds at eight more power-generating plants are redlining. If she takes them off-line all at once, it could lead to a precipitous drop in voltage, which would trigger automatic shutdowns all across the region. She begins removing the troubled plants from the grid one at a time and replaces them with spinning standbys—power plants that are up and running but not sending power to the grid. The one major problem that all power grid managers have to deal with is the fact that there is no energy storage to draw from. If you want power then you have to get it from a power-producing plant at the exact moment you need it. By the time Jackie is finished replacing the troubled plants, she’s out of spinning standbys and all available plants are now operating at max capacity to pump out power during one of the day’s highest peaks for demand as people enjoy dinner and rest comfortably in their nice, cool homes.

  Jackie swivels her chair around, searching. “John,” she shouts across the room to her coworker, “call the other interconnects to see if we can buy some additional capacity.”

  John waves to let her know he heard her and picks up the phone.

  “No, no, no,” Jackie mutters as turbine speeds at other plants ramp up. “What the hell is going on?” she mumbles as a cascade of alarms sound around the room. The current status of the grid is displayed on a very large screen hanging on the front wall and Jackie looks on in horror as several grid segments flash from green to red. Red is the one color that makes a grid controller’s blood run cold and it feels as if ice is running through Jackie’s veins as she watches the avalanche of power failures continue. Within seconds the entire map turns red and 18 million people are left in the dark.

  CHAPTER 65

  Kansas City, Kansas

  For most of the 18 million people caught off guard when the power goes off, it’s an irritant and an inconvenience. But it’s much more than that for the Thornton family, who live on the Kansas side of the border that cuts Kansas City in half. Thirty-nine-year-old Todd Thornton fumbles through the dark on his way into the kitchen to grab a flashlight, all the while talking to his thirteen-year-old daughter, Grace. “I’ll be right there, sweetie. I just need to find a flashlight.”

  “I’m okay . . . Dad,” Grace says, exasperated.

  He shuffles into the kitchen and starts opening drawers, feeling around for a flashlight. He knows he has a half dozen of them scattered around the house for situations such as this, but finding one is a different story when there’s no hint of light inside a darkened house. His callused fingers light on a cold, steel cylinder and he pulls it from the drawer and clicks it on, waving the beam around the room. “I found it,” he says to Grace.

  “I can . . . see that.”

  Todd moves around the breakfast bar and walks over to where his daughter is and kneels on the floor. He finds the button that displays the battery level and punches it. His heart sinks when he sees the indicator in the red.

  “We’re good for a while,” he says, climbing to his feet. “I don’t know why the generator didn’t kick on. Guess I need to go see what’s wrong with it.”

  “What’s . . . a while?” Grace asks. Using her mouth to activate the sip and puff functions on her wheelchair, she spins around to look at her father.

  “Don’t worry, Gracie,” he says, taking a seat on the couch.

  In the car with her mother when a drunk driver swerved across the centerline and plowed into their car on a sunny afternoon last summer, thirteen-year-old Grace Thornton survived and her mother, Sharon, did not. But for Grace, who is now a quadriplegic, Todd knows there are days when she wished she hadn’t, and that’s something they have to get through together. Unable to breathe on her own, Grace has a tracheostomy and relies on a ventilator to keep her alive.

  What was once a family of three is now a family of two. Todd, who works full-time as a carpenter, has home-care providers to help with Grace’s care round the clock, but he prefers time alone with Grace a couple of hours during the evening so that he and Grace can chill in privacy. The settlement they received from the drunk driver’s insurance company pays for Grace’s care and there’s probably enough money to allow Todd to cut back on his hours. But his plan is to use that money to send Grace to college, an opportunity he was never afforded.

  Todd is a tall, broad-shouldered man with a keen eye for detail. His carpentry skills are in high demand and his work appears in some of the most expensive homes in Kansas City. He and Sharon had bought a three-bedroom Craftsman bungalow in desperate need of repair the year before Grace was born. Sharon and Todd laughed and loved as they ripped out old flooring, installed new hardwood floors, and shopped for new appliances. Devastated after the accident, Todd worked through his grief as he widened the doors, built an entry ramp, and remodeled the bathroom—all to accommodate Grace’s wheelchair.

  “Are you . . . going to check . . . on the . . . generator?” Grace asks. Most patients with a tracheostomy are unable to talk, but in Grace’s case she can still swallow, so the doctors decided on another type of trach tube that allows some air to pass through her vocal cords, allowing her to speak.

  Todd glances at his watch. “I want to wait until Doris comes. She should be here in the next ten minutes or so.” Doris Martinez is the night caregiver who spends five nights a week staying at the Thornton home.

  The ventilator’s battery level isn’t usually a concern. But Todd had taken the day off and he and Grace ran around town buying supplies and a few new outfits for school that starts next week. He wonders what’s wrong with the generator now. It’s used so infrequently and the last time it didn’t come on, Todd discovered that rats or squirrels had chewed through the plastic housing and went after the wiring. But he has to have it. Without that generator the hospital will not allow Grace to live at home. As an added precaution, Todd registered his daughter’s ventilator use with the local power company, making their home a priority for return to service.

  “Will you . . . check to see . . . how much . . . battery. . . I have left . . . on my iPad?” Grace asks.

  “I will. Would you like to read?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be right back.” Todd stands and returns to the kitchen to grab Grace’s iPad. While he’s there, he opens the cabinet where they keep Grace’s supplies and pulls out the manual resuscitator and places it on the counter, where it’ll be within easy reach. When he returns to Grace’s side, he lays the flashlight in her lap and mounts the iPad holder on her wheelchair and pops in her tablet. He then straps on Grace’s head-mounted stylus pointer, which she uses to turn the pages. “Is the headband too tight?”

  “No . . . it’s fine . . . quit worrying . . . Dad . . . and go fix . . . the generator.”

  Todd is torn. He would like Grace to experience as much independence as possible, but he hates leaving her alone, even for a second. There are just too many things that could go wrong—a ventilator hose could kink or slip off her trach tube and without the use of her hands, Grace would be unable to fix it on her own. Todd grabs the flashlight and kneels down to check the ventilator’s battery status again. It’s still in the red, but Todd doesn’t know how accurate the indicator really is because he has never allowed it to reach that level. He sits back on his heels, wondering if he can afford to wait any longer.

  CHAPTER 66

  North Atlant
ic Ocean

  The good news is the ship’s engineers have finally fixed the USS Stark’s radio. The bad news is the radio now works. Both Admiral Richard Malloy and Captain Bruce Hensley received a tongue-lashing from the commander of the Atlantic Fleet unlike any the crew had heard before. Both are now relieved of duty and Executive Officer Kathleen Connelly is at the helm as they limp back to port. Only one of the engines is back online, but that’s okay with most of the crew. No one is in a real big hurry to find out what punishments may await back at the naval base.

  As a steady stream of damage reports from Norfolk continues over the radio, Captain Hensley reads through his own damage report. He has been relieved of command, however, he hasn’t been banished to his quarters. The upper superstructure of the ship sustained heavy damage and they’re damn lucky no one was killed. Many of the injuries were superficial and most of the crew are back at work after being treated and released by the ship’s medical personnel. Hensley lays the report aside and stands, making his way across the room to where Malloy is seated. He pulls up a chair and sits.

  “We should have canceled the entire Zumwalt program,” Malloy says.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Money. The navy had to have something to show for those billions spent over the years.”

  “What happens to the ship now?”

  Malloy shrugs. “I doubt any of the three will see the open sea again.” Malloy sighs. “Maybe we tried to do too much, too soon.”

  “How so, sir?” Hensley asks. Talking helps him not think about his dismal future.

  Malloy looks around the mission center. “The ship’s computers. No matter how hard you try, someone is always waiting to exploit a weakness. Maybe we would have been better off if we’d compartmentalized more and not tried to create this total ship computing environment.” He turns to look at Hensley. “Hell, I grew up watching three television channels. What the hell do I know about computers? But, I will say, we had some of the brightest people in the business working on this project and we still didn’t get it right.” Malloy looks away, staring at something in the distance. “What a mess.”